http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34663242 Quelle surprise. Let's not forget that we still have Rosicky, Wilshere, Welbeck and Ramsey out with injury. I'm not going to say "I told you so", but if we're going to be brutally honest, we all had a feeling deep down that not buying any outfield players this Summer would be critical in determining how our season is shaped because of our misfortune (if you can even call it that) with injuries. Some of us were getting a little giddy with our good form of late, but a lot of us anticipated that we would get injuries at some point because we've had such a poor record in the past with players maintaining their fitness over the entire campaign. I would actually go as far as to say that not signing any outfield players this Summer is a sackable offence in itself, in my opinion. Perhaps to a degree I can understand not getting a striker, even though I still feel that we didn't/don't necessarily need a world-class striker to compete for the league, but to not buy a CDM (as cover or competition for Coquelin) and a winger were very amateur mistakes for such an experienced manager. As a result, we are in danger of undoing all the hard work we've done thus far in the league because our manager was too arrogant to dip into the transfer market and assumed we'd be fine, when the players listed earlier in the article have a well-documented history of picking up lengthy injuries. We now go into the matches against Swansea, Bayern and Spurs (at the very least) with a very thin squad. We can't afford anymore injuries otherwise we'd really be up **** creek. Nevertheless, if some of you had wondered why I was on the fence about our chances of winning the league this season, this is why. It's not the first time AW's lack of foresight has cost us and I'm sure it won't be the last. If our season gets derailed due to injuries, I'm sure there will be some of us who blame it on that. But why are we still having problems with them as frequently as we are when AW brought in new staff? Why didn't we sign more players when we had the chance to in the Summer? These are the bigger questions that need to be answered.
Had we got the forward we were crying out for in the summer there'd be much less pressure on Giroud's shoulders now. He looked to be flourishing with Theo sharing the burden up front so I really hope his form doesn't slide again or, obviously, he takes a knock.Yes there's every chance we can get through the period relatively unscathed but it's a position we needn't be in. Must say though that whilst I thought we should have brought in the summer, at no point did I think we were weak on the right. I honestly don't think you can legislate for the amount of injuries we've currently got for our right-sided midfielders/people who can 'do a job' there. It's f*cking ridiculous really and, as you say, more questions have to be asked about our training methods/medical staff. I can fully appreciate injuries happen in football but to lose two players in 10 minutes due to seemingly the exact same muscle injury is embarrassing.
I hate it when people start gloating with the ' I told you so' threads, we are joint top of the league and you are claiming the manager should be sacked We cant just stockpile players in case we have injuries, apart from bloating the wage bill further, players are not going to sign for us knowing that they may just be injury cover, lets actually wait and see what happens over the next few weeks before gloating that you told us so.
I still think we're short up front regardless of our injuries but I am more concerned by the sheer volume of them. Other clubs have bad luck at times too but I'd be stunned to find a club who've suffered as many injuries as us on such a consistant basis. I'm not talking your leg breaks here, more muscle related problems though I do think we have had a history of bringing players back before they're ready and exacerbating the problems. Course, another issue is why are we not able to bring any suitable players through our reserves/academy. What's the point of it if not to assist in times like these. I'm not expecting young players to come in and perform like first team starters but I would hope for better than we saw against Wednesday for example. Pretty damning for Arsene to say they're not ready as he's normally so supportive.
6 to 8 players injured at any given moment during the season is about normal, considering our last 5-7 years stats. That is what we should expect and plan for. Full squad is something that simply does not happen. Only 2 or 3 injured players is a very lucky situation, that we can not rely upon either. So from that point of view we are OK. The number of injured players is about average. When 6 injured players play in the same position is indeed a bit unlucky. I would recall Gnabry and give him a chance. Potentially in my view he is a better player than Ox. Pity he had such a serious injury.
Not signing a single outfield player is incompetence, not signing a single outfield player when we already had Wellbeck, Wilshere, and Rosicky out long term, while also getting rid of Diaby, is doubly incompetent, unless you're dumb enough to believe the lies that oh we never knew they would be out for so long and we just magically found out the day after the transfer window closed. Yes, we are joint top at the moment, let's see what the situation looks like after we face Spurs.
I suppose it's that you can legislate for 6-8 players injured at any given time as long as they are spread out across the team. (such as when we had Merts, Arteta, Wilshere, Rosicky, Welbeck, Ospina all out and it didn't really affect us), but when you've got 5 players out in one position and another 2 (Arteta and Welbeck) out in supplementary positions then it makes it hard to cover. As we've been struggling to give Rosicky, Gnarby and Wislhere game time as it was, if we'd bought another RW then we'd have needed to sell one surely?
Before anyone says though - I do agree we should have signed a DM in the summer, and that may have alleviated some of these problems.
It's tricky but I would actually say you are wrong. Here are the facts: 1 - Wenger choose NOT to add another striker in the Summer. The reason he claims was Theo Walcott. With the 7 goals in 13 starts for Theo so far this term its fair to say he was in fact correct to put his faith in him. Giroud has continued to impress and his mins to goals ratio is currently up there with the best in Europe. Like it or not that's a fact. We currently have 3 forwards with a better than 1 in 2 'goals to games' ratio this term. 2 - We have a massive squad. Midfielders: Ozil, Carzorla, Ramsey, Wilshere, Chamberlain, Coquelin, Arteta, Rosicky and Flamini. (thats without any of the reserves/youth) Forwards: Walcott, Giroud, Wellbeck, Alexis Sanchez, Campbell, Gnabry. In terms of numbers our squad is just as large as City's or Chelsea's. So I would argue - That our problem is how we manage injuries. Not that we didn't buy. What is Wenger supposed to do keep adding more and more top class players to make up for our injury problems?? (The wage bill would get insaine for a start.) The answer has to be to change things up with our training and medical team If the squad has the quality then it's the injury problems we need to address. The answer to that problem is NOT buying more more players. That's financial suicide.
I actually hate seeing posts like this because they just don't look at the bigger picture. First of all, I actually stated that I'm not going to say I told you so purely because the general consensus on here was that just signing Cech wasn't going to be enough to mount a serious title challenge. So perhaps you should actually read the article properly before you post. Secondly, you're not thinking longer term here. Who do we have that can actually do a good shift whilst the aforementioned players are out for the next few weeks and beyond? More importantly, who do we trust? Irrespective of whether we come through the next few games with maximum points or not, we took an unnecessary risk by not attempting to acquire more players when we had months on end to do so. We had ample time, we had the resources and we failed to add more depth to our squad. How people are still finding room to excuse the manager here is absolutely extraordinary. Thirdly, stockpiling players isn't the point. I hardly think that asking for 2/3 new players is 'stockpiling' the squad at all actually. What I said - and if you actually read the thread properly you would be able to understand this - is that the players that are out with injury have previous records of picking up knocks easily so they can't be fully relied on. Whether that's down to the training methods that we have or the players being rushed back into action from injury, I don't know. What I do know is that these problems we've had have been going on for ages now and despite bringing in new personnel and specialists to help prevent these injuries from happening regularly, they are still happening. So how Wenger thought that it would be okay to leave the squad as it is and hope for the best is extremely short-sighted and irrational.
I just read your post and these aren't facts at all. You don't know any of this stuff better than I do. It's all supposition. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. Either way, you don't know this anymore than I do. Nevertheless, I can understand the arguments that both criticise him for not buying another forward and the ones who say he was right to not do so. Personally, I lean more towards the former than the latter because I honestly don't feel that we needed a world-class name to win us the league, just someone who suits us up front better than OG. To some degree, you can make this argument, but not only is Theo not a natural centre-forward, he has had a career plagued with injuries that has stunted his development. Is he reliable when it comes to fitness? The evidence would suggest not. Giroud has done well when he has come off the bench and I will give him credit where its due. However, I still feel that we can't play the free-flowing, incisive football we want to when he's the lone CF because he is cumbersome on the ball and can slow our play down too often, which limits the tempo we want to play at. He has done well thus far. But can he be relied on to maintain his form over the entire campaign? Previous seasons gone by would suggest not, as he has gone through barren spells of not scoring at critical moments of our seasons before. This is utterly laughable. Ramsey, Wilshere and Chamberlain are injured. Arteta, Rosicky and Flamini are also injured, too old or substandard. These players can't be relied on either due to the amount of time they are out for because of their injuries or because they don't have the legs to fulfil their duties as a player. Welbeck is injured, Walcott is now injured, Gnabry is on loan and Campbell has been unimpressive to say the least. Instead of just looking at pure numbers, how about adding a bit of context to your post? I'm criticising him for both, actually. I'm not suggesting we add like 8 new players to our team, that is just ridiculous. But adding 2-3 more players would not have been 'financial suicide' as you so eloquently put it and it would be ludicrous to suggest otherwise. Why do we have names like Flamini, Arteta, Campbell, Rosicky and Sanogo listed as playing staff when most are just taking up squad places and aren't good enough? If we wanted to be efficient, we'd cut them from our playing squad and bring in upgrades - who don't necessarily have to be world-class. That is sensible.
Stating "I'm not going to say I told you so" is up there with "I don't want to be mean but...". People seem to think it's an excuse to do exactly what they said they weren't going to.
I must have missed the part of the season where our form slumped and we lost against Swansea, Bayern and Spurs. Anyone got a link so I can watch the replays?
Not really. If the majority of people on here stated that we needed more players than just Cech, then me saying "I told you so" would be futile. I was just pointing out that it wasn't going to be one of those sort of threads.
According to the bookies Swansea are 5/1 to win so it would appear they disagree with some cynical Gooners!
You suggested AW should be sacked for the way he has carried out his managerial duties. AW has us sitting joint top in case you hadn't notice. OG's goal rate is very good and he has been better up front than Walcott thus far. Oxo is not really a big loss based upon recent form.
Quotes after the Watford game: “If Walcott plays and scores everybody says Walcott is good,” Wenger said. “But before the game everybody says ‘why did you not buy a striker?’ “If I bought a striker Walcott would not have played. It’s always a vicious circle. I would say that backs up my hypothesis. Wenger didn't want to buy another striker because he wanted to give Theo a chance upfront. It depends on the opposition. Having one more mobile player like Theo and a more orthodox target man (Giroud) is not a bad idea it gives us different options. So far both are scoring too which is a bonus. He's not cumbersome on the ball. If I would label any criticsm at Giroud it would be his finishing can be erratic and he disappears sometimes in the big matches. In terms of being 'cumbersome' on the ball that's not true. His link up play is up there with the best. They may be injured but they still exists! Also when you have as many injuries as us it is CLEARLY due to our methods within the Club. Walcott is injury prone perhaps - reason for that though could quite easily be the fact we have mismanaged his past problems. Hypothetically scenario - lets say we had splashed 35-55 million on a Benzema/Higuaine/Cavani. How many goals do you think they will score? I would say a realistic estimation for a first year in the EPL would be 1 in 2 at best. - Walcott and Giroud are both hitting those numbers already! So we would be paying the HUGE transfer fee and the wages of the unhappy player sitting on the bench. The main thing is - If the players are good enough we should keep them. If not sell them and buy better ones. It would be TERRIBLE management to keep buying players to cover for injured ones.
They haven't exactly been playing great, I think their win against the worst team in the league was the first for quite a while. They seem to save their best performances for us though...
